My Healthy Journey: Mixing Procrastination and Halloween

So, I know I’ve mentioned before now that Halloween candy is hard for me to resist, but I’m not sure that I’ve mentioned that Halloween is also my favorite holiday.

I did theater as a kid, and dressing up and doing fun makeup is my favorite part, but I love lots of things about Halloween.

I have enough candy in the house all month long to really damage a person’s insides. (There are candy dishes in multiple rooms of the house, and bags of it stashed in other multiple rooms.) I love caramel apples. I love Curtis Orchard, for you Champaign area residents, and their cider and donuts. I love the creepy and cute decorations. I love horror movies, even the bad ones. I love seeing little kids in costume* all over the neighborhood, and I’m not normally a kid-person either, so that’s saying something. (I have an irrational fear that my arms will suddenly give out, and I will drop and kill any child I am holding.)

*If you too love seeing babies in costumes, you have to look at this blog post with our social media recap from last week. Have you ever seen a happier and cuter Chucky?

So, every year around Halloween, my life gets a little crazier and busier. Most years, I make homemade candy and popcorn balls and eat way too much. This year, I was good and resisted the urge, (even though our Pinterest has some really great lighter candy recipes, if you too have a sweet tooth problem,) and instead snacked on microwave kettle corn.

I also plan elaborate costumes and carve lots of pumpkins, and I usually try to use some of the wasted seeds and pumpkin in recipes. This year, my roommate and I even went a little crazy on decorations:

And these are just the big displays. We also have Halloween handtowels, an all-black candelabra in the dining room, and candles everywhere…

I had to cut back my Halloween love this year though because we’re all still pretty busy here at Health Alliance with the Medicare Annual Enrollment Period going on, and with the regular Open Enrollment Period about to begin.

So while I didn’t make a lot of food, (truthfully for the best,) I did still carve seven pumpkins and go costume crazy. (Both of which my dog hates. She does not appreciate my cuddling pumpkins on my lap every night for a week instead of her, nor does she enjoy not recognizing me and getting makeup in her mouth when giving kisses.)

Why am I telling all of you this? Because I’ve sadly been too busy for my Rally goals. I started out good on the stretching, but it didn’t last once I hit last week. The only mission I’ve really been doing is the bedtime routine, and even that’s been thrown out of whack with how busy I was. Which is why I haven’t blogged. I don’t have much good health news to report.

So, because November is the month where I stop eating candy, and start making good, you get one last post all about my distracted failures. To make up for the fact that I’m not much of a health inspiration, let me be your holiday one!

Because of my costume, I went with Disney themed pumpkins:

Now, I know most of you have never actually seen me before, so this photo of my costume won’t be much of a transformation to you, but I promise that’s not normally what my face looks like! I went as Ursula from “The Little Mermaid,” because I loved the costume with the movable tentacles, but I wanted to be a really evil Ursula. The kind mermaids would actually be afraid of. I think I ended up looking a bit like the creatures from “Avatar,” but it was a lot of fun!

(Also, I’m making that face because I even had fangs!)

And finally, just for kicks, here are some pumpkin oldies from a few years ago, when I did my personal favorite theme, ’80s horror movie villians:

I apologize for my lazy journey progress, but take comfort in knowing my punishment, as I’m now nursing a sugar hangover and seriously abused skin, and yet I encourage you to waste a little time on the things you love! Happy is an important part of any healthy journey.

Have your own awesome costumes or decorations? Feed my obsession and share in the comments or on our social media!